The Philippines has officially filed for the country's entitlement to an extended continental shelf (ECS) in the West Palawan Region in the West Philippine Sea.

The Philippine Mission to the United Nations in New York submitted the information to the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to register on June 14, New York time.

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Assistant Secretary for Maritime and Ocean Affairs Marshall Louis Alferez, the submission is a declaration of the Philippines' maritime entitlements under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and its commitment to the responsible application of its processes.

He underscored the significance of the submission in securing the Philippines' sovereign rights and maritime jurisdictions in the West Philippine Sea, noting that the 2016 Award on the South China Sea Arbitration confirmed the Philippines' maritime entitlements and rejected those that exceeded geographic and substantive limits under UNCLOS.

Alferez also said the move manifests the Philippines' exclusive right to explore and exploit natural resources in its ECS entitlement.

"Incidents in the waters tend to overshadow the importance of what lies beneath," he said.

"The seabed and the subsoil extending from our archipelago up the maximum extent allowed by UNCLOS hold significant potential resources that will benefit our nation and our people for generations to come," he added.

However, Alferez said the Philippine submission does not prejudice discussions with relevant coastal States that may have legitimate ECS claims measured from their respective lawful baselines under UNCLOS.

"We consider our submission as a step in discussing delimitation matters and other forms of cooperation moving forward," he said.

"What is important is that the Philippines puts on record the maximum extent of our entitlement," he added.

Ambassador Antonio Lagdameo, Permanent Representative of the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in New York, said the submission "can reinvigorate efforts of States to demonstrate their readiness to pursue UNCLOS processes in the determination of maritime entitlements and promote a rules-based international order."

Under Article 76 of the UNCLOS, a coastal State such as the Philippines is entitled to establish the outer limits of its continental shelf comprising the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas extending beyond 200 nautical miles (NM) but not to exceed 350 NM from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

The National Mapping and Resource Information Agency (NAMRIA) led the Extended Continental Shelf Technical Working Group (ECS-TWG) which worked on the submission for over a decade and a half. NAMRIA Administrator Peter Tiangco welcomed the official ECS submission and thanked the ECS-TWG for their work in gathering and processing data on geodetic and hydrographic information, and geophysical and geological information to substantiate the submission.

This is the second time the Philippines has submitted an ECS entitlement. In April 2009, the Philippines made a partial submission on the Philippine Rise, which the CLCS validated in 2012, resulting in an additional 135,506 square kilometers of seabed area for the Philippines. In that submission, the Philippines stated it reserved the right to make future submissions in other areas.